Hearing the Whispers
by Twigglet25
Summary: 'An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.' - Walter Bagehot. Just a short one shot reminding you that someone will always hear if your talking about another person.


Colin screwed up his face in concentration and jabbed his wand at his bullfrog again.

"_Silencio,_" He said. Nothing happened.

Colin sighed and put down his wand, glancing around the classroom as he did so to check how others were faring. One table over Ginny successfully silenced her bullfrog, receiving cheers from the small knot of girls around her as she did so. Colin then glanced towards the back of the classroom, where the Slytherin boys were sitting in a huddle, whispering about something. He rolled his eyes at their lack of concentration and was just about to turn back to his bullfrog when he heard a snatch of their conversation.

"What about Creevey?"

Colin quickly turned back to the front so they wouldn't think he was eavesdropping, behind him he could hear a few laughs and a gruff voice saying.

"Yeah, sounds good,"

He desperately wanted to hear what they were saying but there was no way he could do that without them knowing. Worried, his palms began to sweat. What were they going to do to him? Colin really hated the Slytherin boys in his year; they were all nasty people who took a lot of satisfaction in being cruel to those they saw as below them. Unfortunately, Colin was one of those people. The problem was no-one really wanted to stand up to them, they mostly picked on people who were more isolated and it was difficult to stand up to five thugs if there was only one of you. In the past they had stolen Colin's camera, knocked over his potions and had even jinxed him in the corridors a few times. He was beginning to seriously worry now and strained his ears again to hear what the boys were saying, sadly all he could hear was muttering.

"Mr Creevey!"

Colin snapped to attention as Professor Flitwick said his name loudly.

"If you've quite finished daydreaming, I'd like you to show me the spell please,"

"Um … okay Sir …"

Colin fumbled with his wand and hastily pointed it at his bullfrog

"_S-Silencio,_" He stammered, feeling his cheeks heat up.

Again nothing happened. Professor Flitwick shook his head slowly and said.

"Please practise this for next lesson Mr Creevey," He turned to leave.

Behind him, the Slytherins were laughing at his poor attempt, Colin's cheeks burnt further. Just as he was raising his wand for another stab at it, he caught three words of what they were saying.

"… do it now …"

It was so quiet and muffled by laughter that Colin wasn't even sure he'd heard those words at all. However, something about them made him sit up straight, head held high in alert. Shifting slightly, Colin could now she the huddle of Slytherin boys out of the corner of his eye. From somewhere within the knot, a wand was lifted. Prepared for what he was going to do, Colin heard the small intake of breathe and dropped out of his chair to the floor.

"_Furnunculus_!"

The spell whizzed over Colin's head and flew out of sight, but a second later a gasp of surprise could be heard. Kneeling up, Colin saw Professor Flitwick, who had still been a few metres in front of Colin's desk, holding his face in his hands. A silence fell over the room, broken only by the remaining croaks of the bullfrogs and caws of the ravens. Ever so slowly, Professor Flitwick raised his head to reveal that his face was totally covered in large, painful looking boils. Colin bit his lip to stop from laughing and wished he had his camera. Flitwick did not need to ask who had fired the spell as in his shock at hitting the wrong person, Elward – the Slytherin boy, still had his wand raised.

"Detention. Thursday evening. Seven o'clock. My office!" Fumed Professor Flitwick just as the bell rang to signal the end of class. Hurriedly, everyone packed up their belongings as Professor Flitwick stormed out the classroom to find a cure for boils potion. Colin swung his bag onto his shoulder and turned to the Slytherin boys behind him. Raising his chin and feeling a little bit of the Gryffindor bravery come into him he said.

"Should learn to keep your voices down for next time,"

Then he hurried out of the classroom, chuckling to himself.

* * *

><p>This is set during Colin's 5th year, as in Harry's 6th - just to make that clear :) So this was a really short piece for me and it was written for My Dear Professor McGonagall's Clue Prank Competition. I received Colin Creevy in the Charms classroom with furnunculus and this is what I made of it. Hope you enjoyed and please review :D<p>

Hannah x


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